Free Programs Include Slide Shows, Film Screening, Surf Music Lecture and Reggae Music DJ

BOCA RATON, FL (April 30, 2012) – Florida Atlantic University’s University Galleries will host a series of public programs to mark the closing of the “Surfing Florida: A Photographic History” exhibition on Saturday, May 12 from 3 to 8 p.m. in the Schmidt Center Gallery, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton campus. The event will include slide shows, a film screening, lecture and music.

The slide shows will be presented by photographers John Tate and Nic Lugo. Tate, a Broward County native, has been photographing surfing in Florida since the early 1970s. Lugo is a younger photographer who specializes in water photography, often getting close-up images of surfers enveloped “in the tube” in both local and international waters.

Following the slide shows, FAU associate professor and ethnomusicologist, James E. Cunningham, Ph.D., will present a lecture titled “Surf Rock and the Music of the ‘Right’ Coast” on the history and several revivals and revisions of surf music from the 1950s to the present. The presentation will focus on connections between successive "waves" of surf rock popularity and Floridian instrumental and vocal surf-rock traditions.

The event includes a screening of “Surfing at Summers End,” a film by Will Lucas that is a compilation of several older surfers’ descriptions of the early days of surfing and the importance of surfing in their lives. Lucas, who will be present for the screening, constructs his historical documentaries with vintage 8mm film, still photographs and contemporary interviews. Since 2003, Lucas has made four films under his Surf 64 label that fill a strong nostalgia niche for aging surfers, but are also contributing to a current trend to preserve and digitize surf history often held on aging and brittle film stock.

DJ Lance O of Kulcha Shok Productions will conclude the exhibition closing event from 6 to 8 p.m. by spinning reggae and surf tunes. A cash bar will also be available. Kulcha Shok appears throughout Florida’s coastal communities, often at surf contests and events, and has a following among several generations of surfers. In addition, Lance O is a founding member of the Miami Surf Archive Project, one of several organizations in the state that are working to preserve surf history.

“Surfing Florida” is an exhibition documenting the nearly 100-year history of surfing and surf culture in Florida through photographs by more than 60 photographers; media stations including excerpts of Hollywood films like “Gidget,” interviews with numerous important Florida surfers, and many core surf films. The exhibition also includes a collection of more than 50 surfboards — from a 1930s-era Tom Blake hollow board to a contemporary board by shaper Matt Kechele whose 1979 “Kech-Airs” were the first successful forays into the most progressive phenomena in today’s surfing, aerial surfing.

The public programs and the exhibition are free and open to the public. The “Surfing Florida” exhibition is supported in part by a grant from the Florida Humanities Council; the National Endowment for the Humanities; the Palm Beach County Cultural Council; the Roslin Family Foundation. Printing Services are provided by Konica Minolta Business Solutions. Eastern Surf Magazine is the media sponsor.

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 29,000 undergraduate and graduate students on seven campuses and sites. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.